A New Efficient Low-Complexity Scheme for Multi-Source Multi-Relay Cooperative Networks

This paper proposes a new efficient scheme for the combined use of cooperative diversity and multiuser diversity. Considering a decode-and-forward (DF) opportunistic relaying strategy, we first study the outage behavior of the joint source-relay-selection scheme with/without direct links, from which the significance of the direct links is recognized. Motivated by the crucial role of these links on the system performance, a two-step selection scheme is proposed, which first selects the best source node based on the channel quality of the direct links and then selects the best link from the selected source to the destination. The proposed scheme significantly reduces the amount of channel estimation while achieving comparable outage performance to that using the joint selection scheme. Most importantly, the achieved diversity order is the same as that using the joint selection scheme. In addition, assuming an amplify-and-forward (AF) opportunistic relaying strategy, the outage behavior of this two-step scheme is also analyzed, and its availability is confirmed as well.